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“He will die,” repeated Milady. “She first, then he.”

Athos felt his head spinning: the sight of this creature, who had nothing of the woman about her, brought back terrible memories to him. He thought of how one day, in a less dangerous situation than the one he now found himself in, he had meant to sacrifice her to his honor. His desire for murder flared up in him again and invaded him like a burning fever: he stood up in his turn, brought his hand to his belt, drew a pistol, and cocked it.

Milady, pale as a corpse, wanted to cry out, but her frozen tongue could produce no more than a hoarse sound that had nothing of human speech about it and seemed like the rasping of a wild beast. Pressed against the dark tapestry, she appeared, with her dishevelled hair, like a ghastly image of terror.

Athos slowly raised his pistol, stretched out his arm until the weapon almost touched Milady’s forehead, then, in a voice all the more terrible in that it had the supreme calm of inflexible resolution, said:

“Madame, you are going to give me the paper that the cardinal signed for you this very instant, or, by my soul, I will blow your brains out.”

With another man, Milady might have harbored some doubt, but she knew Athos. Yet she remained motionless.

“You have one second to make up your mind,” he said.

Milady saw by the contraction of his face that the shot was about to be fired. She quickly brought her hand to her breast, took out a paper, and handed it to Athos.

“Take it,” she said, “and be cursed!”

Athos took the paper, put the pistol back in his belt, went to a lamp to make sure it was the right one, unfolded it, and read:

It is by my orders and for the good of the State that the bearer of this present has done what he has done.

3 December 1627

Richelieu

“And now,” said Athos, picking up his cloak and putting his hat back on his head, “now that I have drawn your teeth, viper, bite if you can.”

And he left the room without looking back.

At the door, he found the two men and the horse they were holding by the bridle.

“Gentlemen,” he said, “Monseigneur’s orders, as you know, are to conduct this woman, with no loss of time, to the Fort de La Pointe, and not to leave her until she is on shipboard.”

As these words indeed accorded with the orders they had received, they bowed their heads in a sign of assent.

As for Athos, he swung lightly into the saddle and set off at a gallop. Only instead of following the road, he went cross country, spurring his horse vigorously, and pausing now and then to listen.

In one of these pauses, he heard the hoofbeats of several horses on the road. He had no doubt that it was the cardinal and his escort. He at once raced ahead another stretch, rubbed his horse down with heather and leaves, and placed himself in the middle of the road about two hundred paces from the camp.

“Who goes there?” he cried from far off, when he caught sight of the horsemen.

“It’s our brave musketeer, I believe,” said the cardinal.

“Yes, Monseigneur,” replied Athos, “the man himself.”

“M. Athos,” said Richelieu, “accept all my thanks for the good protection you have afforded us. Gentlemen, we have arrived. Take the gate to the left; the password is Roi et Ré.”

As he said these words, the cardinal bowed his head to the three friends and went to the right, followed by his equerry; for, on that night, he slept in camp himself.

“Well!” Porthos and Aramis said together, once the cardinal was out of earshot. “Well, he signed the paper she asked for.”

“I know,” Athos said calmly. “I have it here.”

And the three friends did not exchange a single word more until they reached their sector, except for giving the password to the sentries.

Only they sent Mousqueton to tell Planchet that his master was invited, the moment he was relieved from the trenches, to come to the quarters of the musketeers.

On the other hand, as Athos had foreseen, Milady, finding the men waiting for her at the door, made no difficulty in following them. She had wanted for a moment to be taken